Sunday, January 24, 2016

M&S-style nutty super wholefood salad

I mentioned in my last post that my favourite Marks and Spencer salad is their nutty super wholefood salad. Featuring green beans, peas, broccoli, carrots, black-eyed beans and quinoa plus peanuts, almonds and pistachios, it is absolutely packed with delicious ingredients. A dollop of hummous and a soy and ginger dressing finish the everything off.

Whilst I have no qualms about buying prepared salads on occasion, it's obviously nice to make them at home when possible. It saves money, for one, but it also allows you to customise ingredients and portions - and make up a batch to cover lunches for several days if you're so inclined. With salads like this one, it's also a good way to use up leftover grains or vegetables.

There are a few takes on this M&S salad online already, some following it extremely closely and others using it as a springboard for inspiration. My version is somewhere in between. Like the M&S original, my salad featured green beans, peas, broccoli, quinoa, almonds, hummous and a soy and ginger dressing. I omitted the carrots, black-eyed beans, peanuts and pistachios, but added butter beans, pecans and brown basmati rice (a half-half mix with the quinoa because I had some already cooked). In truth, small beans (black-eyed or otherwise) are probably better suited to this than butter beans, but you can use whatever you have to hand.

I often seem to make dishes that serve three, giving me an initial portion and then two leftover work lunches, or if it's a meal Mr Bite is eating, one leftover work lunch. Up the quantities slightly if you are serving four, or if you want a more substantial dinner-based meal, you could divide this between two and be very satisfied after eating.

M&S-style nutty super wholefood salad

A close equivalent to the store-bought original, which is packed full of nutrition and flavour

Vegan and easily gluten free

Serves 3

Author: Bite-sized thoughts, adapted from the Marks and Spencer's salad

I always need salad inspiration or I tend to make the same salad over and over. This one looks fabulous. I'm trying to raise my fibre level with more soluble fibre and resistant starch and this would be an ideal salad.Thanks for sharingJulieGourmet Getaways

sounds really good - I had a salad with asparagus, hummus and lots of seeds recently which sounds similar to this (probably had more but I can't remember) - I love the creamy crunchy topping on the veg so I love the sound of this

This salad sounds so filling! I also like that you often cook enough for 3 servings so you'll have enough for lunch - I usually cook just the perfect amount so there is enough left over for myself for lunch the next day too :)

This salad looks so yummy. I'm trying to eat more salad, mainly, as you mentioned, because they're so handy for using up little bits of leftovers. I think I'm going to give this one a go - the dressing convinced me! :)

I genuinely appreciate all comments and the time taken to post them. Occasionally, I may need to restrict commenting to registered users in order to halt large volumes of spam. If that happens, I will lift the restriction within a week.

Want other ways to interact? Bite-sized thoughts is on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/bitesizedthoughts) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/bitesizethought).